Battlefields Chosen by Contemporary Imperialism_Samir Amin

7/31/2019 Battlefields Chosen by Contemporary Imperialism_Samir Amin

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4 THE BATTLEFIELDS CHOSEN BY CONTEMPORARY IMPERIALISM

Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies 2009 24 (2): 4-47

The Battlefields Chosen by Contemporary

Imperialism: Conditions for an Effective

Response from the South

SAMIR AMIN

ABSTRACT. In the art of war, each belligerent chooses the terrain it considers the most

advantageous for its offensive and tries to impose that terrain on its adversary, put the

latter on the defensive. The same goes for politics, both at the national level and in the

geopolitical struggles. For the last thirty years or so, the powers forming the triad of

collective imperialismthe United States, Western Europe and Japanhave been

defining two battlefields, which are still apposite: democracy and the environment.

This paper aims first to examine the concepts and substance in the definitions of each

of these two themes selected by the triad powers and to make a critical analysis of themfrom the viewpoint of the interests of the peoples, nations and states, at which they

are targeted: the countries of the South, after those of the former East. It then looks

at the role of all the instruments brought into play by the strategies of imperialism to

wage its battles: liberal globalization, with its accompanying ideology (conventional

economics), the militarization of globalization, good governance, aid, the war on

terrorism and preventive warfare, as well as their accompanying ideologies (cultural

postmodernism). All throughout, the paper highlights the conditions for an effective

response from the peoples and states of the South to the challenge of the restructuring

of the Triads imperialism.

KEYWORDS. imperialism, democracy, environment, the South, globalization

DEMOCRACY? WHATDEMOCRACY?

It was a stroke of genius of Atlantic alliance diplomacy to choose thefield of democracy for their offensive, which aimed, from thebeginning, to dismantle the Soviet Union and to reconquer Eastern

European countries. This decision goes back to the 1970s andgradually became crystallizedin the Conference of the Organization forSecurity and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) and then with thesigning of the Final Act in Helsinki in 1975. Jacques Andrani, in hisbook with the evocative title Le Pige, Helsinki et la chute du Communisme(The Trap: Helsinki and the Fall of Communism, 2005), explains how


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the Soviets, who were expecting an agreement on the disarmament ofNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a genuine dtente,

were quite simply deceived by their Western partners.It was a stroke of genius because the question of democracy was

a genuine issue and the least one could say was that the Soviet regimeswere certainly not democratic, however one defined its concept andpractice. The countries of the Atlantic alliance, in contrast, couldqualify themselves as democratic, whatever the limitations andcontradictions in their actual political practices, subordinated to therequirements of capitalist reproduction. The comparison of thesystems operated in their favour. This discourse on democracy wasgradually replaced by the one supported by the Soviets and their allies:pacific coexistence, associated with respect for the political practicesof both parties and for noninterference in their internal affairs. Thecoexistence discourse had had its important moments. For example,the Stockholm Appeal in the 1950s reminded people of the realnuclear threat implied by the aggressive diplomacy employed by theUnited States since the Potsdam Conference (1945), reinforced by theatomic bombing of Japan just a few days after the conference.

However, at the same time the choice of this strategy (coexistenceand non-interference) was convenientor could be convenient, accordingto circumstancesto the dominant powers in both West and East. Itenabled the realities of the respective descriptionscapitalist andsocialist to be taken for granted by the countries of bothWest andEast. It eliminated all serious discussions about the precise nature ofthe two systems: that is, from examining the actually existing capitalismof our era (oligopoly capitalism) and actually existing socialism. The

United Nations (with the tacit agreement of the powers of the twoworlds) changed the terms of capitalism and socialism to marketeconomies and centrally planned economies (or to be mischievous,administered economies), respectively.

These two termsboth of them false (or only superficially true)sometimes made it possible to emphasize the convergence of thesystems: a convergence that was itself imposed by modern technology(a theoryalso falsederived from a monistic, technicist concept ofhistory). It also accepted coexistence in order to facilitate this naturalconvergence or, on the contrary, stressed the irreducible oppositionbetween the democratic model (associated with the market economy)and totalitarianism (produced by the administered economy), atcertain moments during the Cold War.


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Choosing to concentrate the battle around the democracydiscourse made it possible to opt for the implacability of systems and

to offer the Eastern countries only the prospect of capitulation byreturning to capitalism (the market) which should then produce,naturally, the conditions for democratization. The fact that this hasnot been the case (for post-Soviet Russia), or has taken place in highlycaricatural forms (for ethnic groups here and there in Eastern Europe)is another matter.

The democratic discourse of the countries of the Atlanticalliance is in fact recent. At the outset, NATO accommodated itselfperfectly well to Salazar in Portugal, the Turkish generals, and theGreek colonels. At the same time, the Triad diplomacies supported(and often established) the worst dictatorships that Latin America,

Africa and Asia had ever known.The new democratic discourse was adopted with much reticence.

Many of the main political authorities of the Atlantic alliance saw theinconveniences that could upset their preferred realpolitik. It wasnot until Carter was president of the United States (rather like Obamatoday) that the moral sermon conveyed by democracy was understood.

It was Mitterand in France who broke with the Gaullist tradition ofrefusing the division imposed on Europe by the cold war strategypromoted by the United States. Later, the experience of Gorbachev inthe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics made it clear that rallying tothis discourse was a guarantee for catastrophe.

The new democratic discourse thus bore its fruits. It seemedsufficiently convincing for left-wing opinion in Europe to support it.This was so, not only for the electoral left (the socialist parties) but also

for those with a more Radical tradition, of which the communistparties were the heir. With eurocommunism, the consensus becamegeneral.

The dominant classes of the imperialist Triad learned lessons fromtheir victory. They thus decided to continue this strategy of centeringthe debate on the democratic question. China is not reproached forhaving opened up its economy to the outside world, but because itspolicies are managed by the Communist Party. No account is made ofthe social achievements of Cuba, unequalled in the whole of Latin

America, but its one party system is constantly stigmatized. The samediscourse is levelled even against Putins Russia.

Is the triumph of democracy the real objective of this strategy? Onehas to be very nave to think so. The only aim of this strategy is to


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impose on recalcitrant countries the market economy, opening themup to and integrating them into the so-called liberal world system. This

is imperialistic, its purpose is to reduce these countries to the status ofdominated peripheries of the system. Once achieved, this objectivebecomes an obstacle to the progress of democracy in the victimizedcountries and is in no way an advance in response to the democraticquestion.

The chances of democratic progress in the countries that practisedactually existing socialism (at least at the beginning) would have beenmuch greater, in the medium term if not immediately. The dialecticsof social struggles would have been left to develop on their own,opening up the possibility of outstripping the limits of actuallyexisting socialism (which had, moreover, been deformed byat apartial adherence to the opening of the liberal economy) to reach theend of the tunnel.

In truth, the democratic theme is only invoked against countriesthat do not want to open up to the globalized liberal economy. Thereis less concern for highly autocratic political regimes. Saudi Arabia andPakistan are good examples, as well as Georgia (before the Atlantic

alliance) and many others. Besides, at the very best, the proposeddemocratic formula hardly goes beyond the caricature of multipartyelections which are not only completely alien to the requirements ofsocial progress but are also alwaysor almost alwaysassociated withthe social regression that the domination of actually existing capitalism(that of the oligopolies) demands and produces. The formula hasalready largely undermined democracy, for which many peoples,profoundly confused, have now substituted religious and ethnic

attachment to the past.Thus, it is more than ever necessary now to reinforce the critique

of the radical Left (I underline radical to distinguish if from the critiqueof the Left, which is confusing and vague). In other words, it must bea critique that associates, rather than dissociates, the democratizationof society (and not only its political management) with social progress(in a socialist perspective). In this critique, the struggle fordemocratization and the struggle for socialism are one and the same;not only can there be no socialism without democracy, but also nodemocratic progress without a socialist perspective.


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THE ECOLOGICALQUESTIONAND SO-CALLED SUSTAINABLEDEVELOPMENT

The point of departure here is an acknowledgement of a real problem,the destruction of the natural environment and, at last resort, thesurvival of life on the planet, which has been brought about by the logicof capital accumulation.

The question stated above dates back to the 1970s, more preciselythe Stockholm Conference of 1972. But for a long time this was aminor issue, marginalized by all the dominant discourses and thepractices of economic management. The question has only been put

forward relatively recently as a new central plank in the dominatingstrategy.

It was the work of Wackernagel and Rees (whose first Englishlanguage publication came out in 1996) that produced a new, majorreflection for radical social thought concerned with the constructionof the future.

Not only did Wackernagel and Rees (1996) put forward a newconcept, that of the ecological footprint. They also elaborated a systemfor measuring it, which was defined in terms of global hectares (gha),comparing the biocapacity of societies/countries (their capacity toproduce and reproduce the conditions of life on the planet) with theconsumption by those societies/countries of the resources at theirdisposal through this biocapacity.

The authors arrived at very disturbing conclusions. The biocapacityof our planet, in human terms, is 2.1 gha per headin other words,13.2 billion gha for a population of 6.3 billion people. However, the

world average consumption of its resources was already at 2.7 gha in the

mid-nineties. This average hides an enormous disparity: the averagefor the countries of the Triad had already reached around four timesthe world average. A large part of the biocapacity of societies in theSouth had been taken by the center for its own profit. In other words,the expansion of actually existing capitalism is destroying the planetand humankind, while the continuing of the logic of this expansionrequires either a veritable genocide of the peoples of the South who arein the way, or at least keeping them in a state of ever-increasing poverty.

An ecolo-fascist current is developing that legitimizes this kind ofsolution to the problem.

The interest of this work goes beyond its conclusions. This isbecause it makes a calculation (and I stress calculation, not a discourse)of the use value of the planets resources, which is measured in global


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hectares, not in dollars. Thus, it has been proven possible that thesocial use value can be calculated in an absolutely rational manner. This

proof is decisive in its impact because socialism is defined in terms ofa society based on use value, not on exchange value. Also, the defendersof end-of-history capitalism have always argued that socialism was anunrealistic utopia becauseaccording to themuse value cannot bemeasured without being mixed with exchange value (based on theutility of vulgar economics).

Taking into account use value (of which the ecological footprintconstitutes the first good example) implies that socialism must beecological, that is, it cannot be anything but ecological. As Altvater(2008) has observed, it is solar socialism or no socialism. However,it also implies that it is impossible for any capitalist system whatsoever,even reformed, to take use value into account, as we shall see later.

Marx not only suspected the existence of this problem during histime. He had already formulated a rigorous distinction between valueand wealth, which were confused by vulgar economics. He saidexplicitly that capitalist accumulation destroyed the natural bases on

which it was founded: human beings (the alienated, exploited,

dominated, and oppressed worker) and the land (symbol of the naturalwealth given to humanity). Whatever the limits of this expression, asalways a prisoner of its epoch, it is nonetheless true that it shows a lucidawareness of the problem (beyond that of intuition), which should berecognized.

It is therefore regrettable that the ecologists of our era, Wackernageland Rees included, have not read Marx. It would have enabled themto carry their propositions further, to understand their revolutionary

impact better and even, naturally, go beyond Marx himself on thesubject.

This deficiency of modern ecology makes it easier for it to be takenover by the vulgar economics that is in a dominant position in thecontemporary world. This takeover is already under wayit may evenbe said to be at an advanced stage.

Political ecology, like that proposed by Alain Lipietz, was firstfound in the ranks of the pro-socialist political Left. Then thegreen movements (and after that, the green parties) were classed ascenter Left, because of their expressed sympathies for social andinternational justice, their criticism of waste, and their empathy withthe workers and the poor populations. But apart from the diversityof these movements, none of them had established a rigorous


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relationship between the authentic socialist dimension necessary torespond to the challenge and the no less necessary ecological dimension.

To be able to do so, the distinction between value and wealth, asoriginated by Marx, cannot be ignored.

The takeover of ecology by vulgar ideology operates at two levels:by reducing the calculation in use value to an improved calculationof exchange value and also by integrating the ecological challenge intoa consensus ideology. Both of these operations prevent a lucidawareness of the fact that ecology and capitalism are antagonistic intheir very essence.

Vulgar economics has been capturing ecological calculation byleaps and bounds. Thousands of younger researchers, in the UnitedStates and, by imitation, in Europe, have been mobilized for thatpurpose. The ecological costs are thus assimilated to the externalities.The common method of cost/benefit analysis for measuring theexchange value (which itself is confused with the market price) is thusused to arrive at a fair price, integrating the external economies andthe diseconomies.

Of course, the work, which is highly mathematical, when carried

out according to this traditional method of vulgar economics does notsay how the calculated fair price can become that of the actuallyexisting market. One can imagine that there will be fiscal and otherincentives sufficiently effective in producing this convergence. Theproof that it could be so is however lacking.

In fact, as we can already see, the oligopolies have taken overecologism to justify opening up new fields for their destructiveexpansion. Franois Houtart (2009) gives an excellent example of this

takeover in his book on agrofuels. Green capitalism is now the orderof the day for those in power in the Triad (Right and Left) and thedirectors of oligopolies. The ecologism in question, of course, conformsto so-called weak sustainabilityto use the current jargonthat is, themarketing of rights of access to the planets resources (Bontaud andGondran 2009). All the conventional economists have openly ralliedto this position, proposing the auctioning of world resources (fisheries,pollution permits, etc.). This is a proposition that supports theoligopolies in their ambition to mortgage the future of the peoples ofthe South still further.

This capture of the ecologist discourse is providing a very usefulservice to imperialism. It makes it possible to marginalize, if not toeliminate, the development issue. As we know, the question of


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development was not on the international agenda until the countriesof the South were able to impose it by their own initiatives, forcing the

powers of the Triad to negotiate and make concessions. But once theBandung era was over, it was no longer a question of development, butonly of opening up the markets. And ecology, as it is interpreted by thedominant powers, is just prolonging this state of affairs.

The taking over of the ecologist discourse through consensuspolitics (the necessary expression of the concept of end-of-historycapitalism) is no less advanced. This capture has had an easy passage, forit responds to the alienations and illusions on which the dominantculture feeds, which is that of capitalism. It has been easy because thisculture really does exist, is in place and dominant in the minds of mosthuman beings, in the South as well as in the North.

In contrast, it is difficult to express the needs of a socialistcounterculture. A socialist culture is not there, in front of us. It is thefuture and has to be invented, a civilization project, open to aninventive imaginary. Formula like socialization through democracyand not through the market and cultural dominance instead ofeconomics, served by politics are not enough, in spite of the success

they have had in initiating the historical process of transformation. Forit will be a long secular process: the reconstruction of societies onprinciples other than those of capitalism, both in the North and in theSouth, cannot be rapid. But the construction of the future, even ifit is far off, starts today.

CONVENTIONALECONOMICS: AN IDEOLOGICALINSTRUMENTTHATIS CENTRALTO CAPITALIST REPRODUCTION

The discourse of conventional economics refers to the current systemas the market economy. The term is inadequate, even deceptive: as

we have already pointed out, it could equally well describe England inthe nineteenth century, China of the Sung and Ming dynasties and thetowns of the Italian Renaissance.

The theory of the market economy has always been the backboneof vulgar economics. This theory immediately eliminates the whole,essential reality of social relationships of production (particularly,ownership as the immediate expression of these relationships, promotedto a sacred principle). It is replaced by the hypothesis of a societyconstituted by individuals (who, in the final analysis, become activeagents in the reproduction of the system and its evolution). These


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individuals (homo conomicus) are ahistorical, identical with thosewho, since the origins of humanity have possessed the same, unchanging

qualities (egoism, the capacity to calculate and to make choices thatbenefit themselves, as represented in Robinson Crusoe). Thus, buildingthe market economy on these foundations does not thereforerepresent a serious formulation of historical and real capitalism. Itconstructs an imaginary system into which it integrates almost nothingof the essentials of the capitalist reality.

Marxs Capital unmasks the ideological nature (in the functionalsense of the word) of this construction of vulgar economics, which hasbeen around since Frdric Bastiat and Jean-Baptiste Say, saying that itsfunction has been simply to legitimize the existing social order,likening it to a natural and rational order. The later theories of valueutility and the general economic equilibrium, developed in responseto Marx in the last third of the nineteenth century, as well as those oftheir subsequent heir, contemporary mathematicized economicsdescribed as classic, neoclassic, liberal, neoliberal (the name does notreally matter)do not diverge from the framework defined by the basicprinciples of vulgar economics.

The discourse of vulgar economics helps to meet the requirementsof the production and reproduction of actually existing capitalism.It brings to the force of competition above everything else, consideredas the essential condition of progress. It denies this attribute tosolidarity (in spite of examples from history), which is confined to astraitjacket of compassion and charity. It can be competition betweenproducers (i.e., capitalists, without greatly considering the oligopolisticform of contemporary capitalist production) or between workers

(which assumes that the unemployed, or the poor are responsible fortheir situation). The exclusivity of competition is reinforced by thenew language (social partners, instead of classes in conflict) as well asby practices of, among others, the European Union Civil ServiceTribunal, which is a fierce partisan of the dismantling of trade unions,an obstacle to competition between workers.

The adoption of the exclusive principle of competition also invitessociety to support the aim of building a consensus that excludes theimaginary prospect of a new society based on solidarity. Thisideology of the consensus society which is well on the way to beingadopted in Europe, destroys the transformative outreach of thedemocratic message. It conveys the libertarian right-wing message thatconsiders the Stateof whatever stripeas the enemy of freedom


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(which should be interpreted as the enemy of the freedom of capitalenterprise) while the practice of democracy is amputated from social

progress.

REALPROBLEMSINTHE CONTEMPORARYWORLD BEYONDVULGARECONOMICS

Vulgar economics simply removes from the field of its analyses thereal major problems posed by the spreading of historical capitalism inits conquest of the world. We shall now briefly recall the nature of thesequestions.

The Capitalism of the Oligopolies

Capitalism has reached a stage of centralization and concentration ofcapital out of all comparison with the situation only fifty years ago. Idescribe this capitalism as one of generalized oligopolies. Monopolies(or more accurately, oligopolies) are in no way new inventions inmodern history. What is new is the limited number of registeredoligopolies (groups) which stands at about 500, if only the colossalones are counted, and 3,000 to 5,000 in an almost comprehensive list.They now determine, through their decisions, the entire economic lifeof the planet. This capitalism of the generalized oligopolies is thus aqualitative leap forward in the general evolution of capitalism.

The reason given for this evolutionand usually it is the only oneis that it is the inevitable result of technological progress. This is onlypartially trueand even so, it is important to specify that technologicalinvention is itself commanded at large by the requirements of

concentration and gigantism. This is because most production, efficiencydoes not demand gigantism but small and medium enterprises.This is the case, for example, of agricultural production, in whichmodern family agriculture has proved to be far more efficient. It is alsotrue of many other types of production in goods and services, whichare now subordinated to the oligopolies that determine the conditionsof their survival.

In truth, the most important reason is the search after maximum

profits that benefit the powerful groups who have priority access tocapital markets. Such concentration has always been the response ofcapital to the long, deep crises that have marked its history. In recenttimes, it happened for the first time after the crisis that started in the1870s, and for the second timeexactly a century laterin the 1970s.


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This concentration is at the origin of the financialization of thesystem, as this is how the oligopolies siphon off the global surplus value

produced by the production system, a rent monopoly that enablesoligopolistic groups to increase considerably their rate of profit. Thislevy is obtained by the exclusive access of oligopolies to the monetaryand financial markets, which thus become the dominant markets.

Financialization is not, therefore, in any way the result of aregrettable drift linked to the deregulation of financial markets, andeven less of accidents (like the subprimes) on which vulgar economicsand the accompanying political discourse concentrate peoplesattention. It is a necessary requirement for the reproduction of thesystem of generalized oligopolies. In other words, until their (private)status is challenged, there is no point in talking about a boldregulation of the financial markets.

Let me reiterate that globalization is in no way a new characteristicof capitalism, which has always been globalized. I have even gonefurther in the description of capitalist globalization, stressing itsinherently polarizing character (producing a growing gulf betweenthe developed centers of the system and its dominated peripheries).

This has taken place at all stages of capitalist expansion in the past andpresent, as will continue to take place in the foreseeable future. I havealso advanced the thesis that the new phase of globalization wasnecessarily associated with the emergence of the collective imperialismof the Triad.

The new globalization is itself inseparable from the exclusivecontrol of access to the natural resources of the planet exercised bycollective imperialism. Thus, the contradiction center/peripheries

the North/South conflict in current parlanceis central in any possibletransformation of the actually existing capitalism of our time. Andmore markedly than in the past, this contradiction requires themilitary control of the planet on the part of the collective imperialistcenter.

The different systemic crises that have been studied and analyzedthe energy-guzzling nature of production systems, the agricultural andfood crisis and so oncannot be disassociated from the capitalistreproduction requirements of the generalized, financialized, andglobalized oligopolies. If the status of these oligopolies is not broughtinto question, any policiessustainable development formulastosolve these systemic crises will just remain idle chitchat.


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The capitalism of the generalized, financialized, and globalizedoligopolies has thus become an obsolete system, in the sense that the

socialization of the oligopoliesthat is, the abolition of their privatestatusshould now become the essential strategic objective in anygenuine critical analysis of the real world. If this does not happen, thesystem by itself can only produce more and more barbaric and criminaldestructioneven the destruction of the entire planet. It will certainlymean the destruction of the societies in the peripheries: those inemerging countries as well as in marginalized countries.

The obsolete character of the system in the present stage of itsevolution is itself inseparable from changes in the structures of thegoverning classes (bourgeoisies), political practice, ideology, andpolitical culture. The historical bourgeoisie is disappearing from thescene and is now being replaced by the plutocracy of the bosses of theoligopolies. The drift in the practice of a democracy emptied of allcontent and the emergence of ideological expressions that areultrareactionary are the necessary accompaniments of the obsoletecharacter of contemporary capitalism.

The domination of the oligopolies is exercised in the central

imperialist Triad in different conditions and by different means thanthose used in the peripheries. It is a decisive difference, essential foridentifying the major contradictions of the system and then imaginingthe possible evolutions in the North/South conflict, which willprobably worsen.

The globalized monopolies are all products of the concentrationof the national capital in the countries that constitute the Triad. Thecountries of Eastern Europe, even those that now belong to the

European Union, do not even have their own national oligopolies,thus represent just a field of expansion for the oligopolies of WesternEurope (particularly Germany). They are therefore reduced to thestatus of the periphery. Their lopsided relationship to Western Europeis, mutatis mutandis, analogous to that which links Latin America to theUnited States (and, incidentally, to Western Europe and Japan).

In the Triad, the oligopolies occupy the whole scene in economicdecision-making. Their domination is exercised directly on all the hugecompanies producing goods and services, like the financial institutions(banks and others) that stem from their power. And it is exercisedindirectly on all the small and medium businesses (in agriculture as inother fields of production), which are often reduced to the status of


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subcontractors, continually subordinated to the constraints that theoligopolies impose on them at all stages of their activities.

The oligopolies dominate not just the economic life of thecountries of the Triad. They also monopolize political power for theirown advantage, the electoral political parties (right and left) havingbecome their debtors. This situation is, for the foreseeable future,accepted as being legitimate, in spite of the degradation of democracythat it involves. It will not be threatened until, sometime in the futureperhaps, anti-plutocracy fronts are able to include on their agendathe abolition of the private management of oligopolies and theirsocialization, in complex and openly evolving forms.

Oligopolies exercise their power in the peripheries in completelydifferent ways. It is true that outright delocalization and the expandingpractice of subcontracting have given the oligopolies of the Triad somepower to intervene directly into the economic life of the variouscountries. But they still remain independent countries dominated bylocal governing classes through which the oligopolies of the Triad areforced to operate. There are all kinds of formulas governing theirrelationships, ranging from the direct submission of the local governing

classes in the compradorized (recolonized) countries, above all inthe marginalized peripheries (particularly, but not only, Africa) tosometimes difficult negotiations (with obligatory, mutual concessions)

with the governing classes, especially in the emerging countries,particularly in China.

There are also oligopolies in the countries of the South. These werethe large public bodies in the former systems of actually existingsocialism (in China, of course as in the Soviet Union, but also at a more

modest level in Cuba and Vietnam). Such was also the case in India,Brazil, and other parts of the capitalist South. Some of theseoligopolies had a public or semipublic status, while others wereprivate. As the globalization process deepened, certain oligopolies(public and private) began to operate outside their borders and takeover the methods used by the oligopolies of the Triad. Nevertheless,the interventions of the oligopolies of the South outside their frontiersareand will remain for a long timemarginal, compared with those ofthe North. Furthermore, the oligopolies of the South have notcaptured the political power in their respective countries for their ownexclusive profit. In China, the statocracy of the Party-State stillconstitutes the essential core of power. In Russia, the mixture of state/private oligarchies has returned the autonomous power to the State,


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which it had lost for a while after the collapse of the Soviet Union. InIndia, Brazil, and other countries of the South, the weight of the

private oligarchy is not exclusive: power rests on broader, hegemonicblocs, including mainly the national bourgeoisie, the middle classes,the owners of modernized large estates (latifundia) and rich peasants.

All these conditions make it impossible to confuse the State in theTriad countries (which functions for the exclusive use of the oligarchyand is still legitimate) and the State in the peripheries. States in thelatter never had the same legitimacy as those in the centers, and theymay very well lose the little that they have. In the peripheries, those inpower are in fact fragile and vulnerable to social and political struggles.

It is an unquestionably mistaken hypothesis that this vulnerabilitywill be transitory and likely to attenuate with the development oflocal capitalism, itself integrated into globalization, which derives fromthe linear vision of stages of development (formulated by Rostow in1960). But conventional thought and vulgar economics do notprovide the intellectual equipment necessary to understand thatcatching up in the system is impossible and that the gap between thecenters and the peripheries will not gradually disappear.

The oligopolies and the political powers that serve them in thecountries of the Triad continue their sole aim of emerging from thefinancial crisis and basically restoring the system as it was. There aregood reasons to believe that this restorationif it succeeds, which is notimpossible, although achieving this is more difficult than is generallythoughtcannot be sustainable, because it involves returning to theexpansion of finance, which is essential for the oligopolies if they areto appropriate monopoly rent for their own benefit. A new financial

collapse, still more sensational than that of 2008, is therefore probable.But these considerations, apart the restoration of the system, with theaim of allowing the expansion of the activities of the oligopolies to beresumed, would mean increasing the accumulation process bydispossessing the peoples of the South through seizure of their naturalresources, including their agricultural land. And the ecologists discourseson sustainable development will not prevail over the logic of theexpansion of the oligopolies, which are more than capable of appearingto adopt them in their rhetoricas we are already seeing.

The main victims of this restoration will be the nations of theSouth, both the emerging countries, and the others. It is very likelythat the North/South conflicts are destined to become much greaterin the future. The responses that the South will give to these challenges


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could thus be pivotal in challenging the whole globalized system. Thismay not mean questioning capitalism directly, but it would surely

mean questioning the globalization commanded by the dominatingoligopolies.

The responses of the South must indeed focus on helping to armtheir peoples and states to face the aggression of the oligopolies of theTriad, to facilitate their delinking from the existing globalizationsystem, and to promote alternatives of multiple South/Southcooperation.

Challenging the private status of the oligopolies by the peoples ofthe North themselves (the anti-plutocracy front) is certainly a trulystrategic objective in the struggle for the emancipation of workers andpeoples. But this objective has yet to become politically mature, andprobably will not be in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the North/South conflicts will probably move to center stage.

Capitalism: A Parenthesis in History

The principle of endless accumulation that defines capitalism is

synonymous with exponential growth and thislike cancerends indeath. Stuart Mill thought that a stationary state would halt thisirrational process. Keynes shared this optimism of Reason. But neitherof them were able to understand how the necessary overtaking ofcapitalism could be imposed. However, Marx, by assigning the newclass struggle its role, could imagine overcoming the power of thecapitalist class, which is today concentrated in the hands of theoligarchy.

Accumulation, which is also another word for impoverishment,

constitutes the objective background for struggles against capitalism.But it takes place mainly through the growing contrast between theopulence of the societies of the center, that benefit from the imperialistrents, and the destitution of the societies in the dominated peripheries.This conflict thus becomes the central theme of the alternativesocialism or barbarism.

Historically, actually existing capitalism has taken place insuccessive forms of accumulation through dispossession, not only at

the outset (primitive accumulation) but at all stages of its development.Once constituted, this Atlantic capitalism set out to conquer the

world and to rebuild it on the basis of a permanent dispossession ofthe conquered regions, which thus became the dominated peripheriesof the system (Arrighi 1994; 2007).1 This victorious globalization


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has proved incapable of imposing itself lastingly. Hardly half a centuryafter its triumph, which could have seemed even then to inaugurate the

end of history, it was challenged by the revolution of the Russiansemiperiphery and the (victorious) liberation struggles of Asia and

Africa that mark the history of the twentieth centurythe first wave ofstruggles for the emancipation of workers and peoples.

Accumulation through dispossession has been continuing underour eyes in the late capitalism of contemporary oligopolies. In thecenters, the rent-seeking monopolies, from which the oligopolisticplutocrats benefit, are tantamount to the dispossession of the wholeproductive base of society. In the peripheries, this impoverishingdispossession is illustrated by the expropriation of the peasantry andthe pillage of the natural resources of the regions concerned. Both thesepractices constitute essential planks in the expansion strategies of thelater capitalism of the oligopolies.

In this context, I put the new agrarian question at the heart ofthe challenge for the twenty-first century. The dispossession of thepeasantry (Asian, African, and Latin American) constitutes the maincontemporary form of the tendency toward the impoverishment (in

the sense that Marx gave to this law) that is associated withaccumulation. Its implementation cannot be separated from theseizure of rent-seeking imperialism by the oligopolies, with or withoutagrofuels. I deduce from this that the development of struggles on theland, the response that will be given through them to the future of thepeasant societies of the South (almost half of humanity) will determinethe capacity of workers and peoples to progress toward an authenticcivilization, liberated from the domination of capital, for which I see

no other name than that of socialism.2

The pillage of the natural resources of the South makes it necessaryto continue wasteful consumption for the exclusive benefit of the richsocieties of the North and destroys all prospects of a development

worthy of the name for the people of the South. This is the other sideof the coin as concerns impoverishment at the world level. Thus, theenergy crisis is not created by the scarcity of certain resourcesnecessary for its production (of oil, of course), nor is it the result of thedestructive effects of the current energy-guzzling forms of productionand consumption. While these are real, they constitute only immediateand visible evidence of the problems. But this crisis has been producedby the desire of the oligopolies of collective imperialism to ensure theirmonopoly of access to the natural resources of the planet to appropriate


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the imperialist rent, whether the utilization of these resources remainsas it is at present (wasteful and energy-guzzling) or the resources are

subject to new, corrective ecological policies. I thus predict that thepursuit of the expansion strategy of the late capitalism of the oligopolies

will necessarily come up against a growing resistance from the nationsof the South.

From One Long Crisis to Another

The crisis that emerged in 2008 is neither a financial crisis, nor anensemble of multiple systemic crises. It is the crisis of the imperialist

capitalism of the oligopolies, whose exclusive and supreme power risksbeing challenged, once again by the struggles of all the popular classesand by those of the peoples and nations of the dominated peripheries,

whether or not they seem to be emerging. It is simultaneously a crisisof US hegemony. The capitalism of the oligopolies, the political powerof the oligarchies, the barbarous globalization, financialization, thehegemony of the United States, militarization of the management ofa globalization at the service of the oligopolies, the decline of democracy,

the pillage of the planets resources, the abandonment of the prospectsfor the development of the Southall these are indissolubly linked.The real challenge is thus: will the struggles succeed in converging

to open the way(s) to the long road of transition to world socialism?Or will they remain separated from one another, even coming intoconflict with each other, and thus be ineffective and leave the initiativeto the capital of the oligopolies?

It is worth going back to the first long crisis of capitalism, whichshaped the twentieth century, as the parallel between the stages of

development in these two crises is really striking.The industrial capitalism that triumphed in the nineteenth century

entered into crisis beginning in 1873. The rate of profits collapsed, forthe reasons shown by Marx. Capital reacted in two ways: byconcentration and globalized expansion. The new monopolies seizedthe rent levied on all the surplus value generated by the exploitation oflabor and accelerated the colonial conquest of the planet. Thesestructural transformations enabled them to obtain soaring new profits

and opened the way to the Belle Epoque (1890 to 1914), whichrepresented the globalized domination of the capital of financializedmonopolies. At the time, the dominant discourse praised colonization(the civilizing mission) and described globalization as being identical

with peace. The social democracy of the European workers rallied tothis discourse.


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21SAMIR AMIN

And yet the Belle Epoque, which was proclaimed as the end ofhistory by the leading ideologues of the era, ended in a world war, as

only Lenin had foreseen. And the period that followed, up until theaftermath of the Second World War, was to be a period of wars andrevolutions. In 1920, the Russian revolution (the weak link in thesystem), having been isolated after the defeat of the hopes for revolutionin central Europethe capital of the financialized monopoles restoredthe Belle Epoque eraagainst all odds. This restoration, which wasdenounced by Keynes at the time, was at the origin of the financialcollapse of 1929 and the subsequent depression that continued untilthe Second World War.

The long twentieth century (1873 to 1990) thus saw both theunravelling of the first deep systemic crisis of an aging capitalism (to thepoint that Lenin thought that this monopoly capitalism constitutedthe highest stage of capitalism), as well as the first, triumphant waveof anti-capitalist revolutions (Russia, China) and the anti-imperialiststruggles of the peoples of Asia and Africa.

The second systemic crisis of capitalism started in 1971, when thedollar lost its convertibility to gold, almost exactly one century after

the first crisis. The rate of profit, investment and growth all shrank (andwere never to return to the same levels they had enjoyed from 1945 to1975). Capital responded to the challenge in the same way as in thepreceding crisis: by a double movement of concentration andglobalization. Thus, it established the structures of financializedglobalization that enabled the oligopolistic groups to maintain theirrent monopoly that were to define the second Belle Epoque (1990to 2008). There was the same accompanying discoursethe market

guaranteed prosperity, democracy, and peace; it was the end ofhistory. And, as before, the European socialists rallied to the newliberalism. Yet this new Belle Epoque was, from the outset, markedby war, waged by the North against the South. And as the firstfinancialized globalization led to 1929, the second produced 2008.

We have now reached a crucial point when there is a probability of anew wave of wars and revolutions. All the more so because thepowers that be cannot envisage anything else than the restoration of thesystem as it was before the financial collapse.

The analogy between the developments of these two long, systemiccrises of aging capitalism is striking. However, there are differences, thepolitical implications of which are important.


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The Second Wave of Peoples Emancipation

The management of contemporary globalization by the oligarchies is

now in crisis. The oligarchies of the North are counting on staying inpower, once the period of crisis is over. They do not feel threatened.On the other hand, the fragility of the powers of the autocracies in theSouth is very visible. Thus, the current globalization is vulnerable. Willit be challenged by the revolt in the South, as happened in the lastcentury? Probably, but that is not enough. For humankind to embarkon the path to socialism, the only human alternative to chaos, it willbe necessary to dismiss these oligarchies, their allies and their servants,

both in the North and in the South.Capitalism is liberal by nature. That is if liberalism is taken to

mean, not the pretty appellation that the term inspires, but the fullexercise of the domination of capital, not only over work and theeconomy, but over all aspects of social life. There is no marketeconomy (the common way of saying capitalism) without a marketsociety. Capital relentlessly pursues its unique objectivemakingmoney; accumulation for itself. Marx, as well as other critical thinkersafter him like Keynes, had understood this perfectlybut not ourconventional economists, including those of the left.

This exclusive and total domination of capital had been inexorablyimposed by the governing classes during the whole of the longtwentieth century, preceding crisis up to 1945. Only the triple victoryof democracy, socialism, and the national liberation of peoples from1945 to 1980 made it possible to substitute this permanent model ofthe capitalist ideal with the conflictual coexistence of three regulatedsocial modelsthe welfare state of the Wests social democracy, the

actually existing socialisms of the East, and the popular nationalismsof the South. The loss of impetus and the consequent collapse of thesethree models made it possible to return to the exclusive dominationof capital, called neoliberalism.

The social disasters that liberalism let loosethe permanentutopia of capital as I put itinevitably inspired much nostalgia for thepast, both recent and more distant. But these nostalgias did notfacilitate an appropriate response to the challenge. They were a product

of the impoverishment of critical theoretical thinking, which graduallymade it impossible to understand the internal contradictions andlimits of the post-Second World War period, of which the erosions,drifts, and collapses appeared like unexpected cataclysms.


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23SAMIR AMIN

Nevertheless, in the vacuum created by the decline in criticaltheoretical thinking, a new awareness of the systemic crisis of civilization

has been able to develop. I am referring here to the ecologists. However,the Greens, who claimed to distinguish themselves radically from theBlues (the conservatives and the liberals) and the Reds (thesocialists), have become trapped in an impasse because they have notintegrated the ecological dimension into a radical criticism of capitalism.

Thus, everything was set to ensure the triumphtemporary, in fact,but believed to be definitiveof the alternative to liberal democracy.It is a miserable way of thinkinga veritable nonthinkingthat takes nonotice of Marxs decisive remarks about this bourgeois democracy,

which ignores the fact that those who decide are not those who areaffected by the decisions. Those who decide, profiting from thereinforcing freedom of the control of property, are today the plutocratsof the capitalism of the oligopolies and the states that are their debtors.Obviously, the workers and peoples concerned are hardly more than

victims. But such illusions could have seemed believable, at least for ashort while, because of the drift of the post-war systems, the origins of

which the true believers did not allow themselves to understand.

Liberal democracy could then seem to be the best of possiblesystems.

These days, the powers that be, who had not foreseen anythingthemselves, are doing their best to restore the same system. Theireventual success, like that of the conservatives of the 1920swhomKeynes denounced without any support at the timecan only exacerbateall the conditions that are the cause of the financial collapse of 2008.The recent meeting of the G20 (London, April 2009) in no way starts

up a reconstruction of the world. And it is not perhaps by chancethat it was followed by that of NATO, the militarized arm ofcontemporary imperialism and by the reinforcement of its militaryoccupation in Afghanistan. The permanent war of the North againstthe South must go on.

We have already seen that the governments of the Triad arepursuing the exclusive objective of restoring the system such as it wasbefore September 2008. More interestingly, the leaders of the invitedemerging countries have kept silent. Only one intelligent sentence

was uttered during this Grand Circus, by the Chinese President HuJintao, who observed, in passing, without insisting and with a(mocking?) smile, that it was necessary to envisage the creation of a

world financial system that was not based on the dollar. A few rare


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observers immediatelyand correctlymade the connection withKeyness 1945 proposals.

This remark reminds us of the reality: that the crisis of the systemof oligopoly capitalism is inseparably linked to that of the hegemonyof the United States, which is running out of steam. But what will takeits place? Certainly not Europe, which does not exist apart from

Atlanticism and has no ambition to be independent, as the NATOmeeting once again demonstrated. China? This threat, which themedia endlessly conjure up (a new yellow peril) is baseless. TheChinese authorities know that their country does not have the meansand they have no desire. The strategy of China is content with workingtoward a new globalization, without hegemonies. This is not consideredacceptable either by the United States or by Europe.

Thus, the chances of a possible development in that direction lieentirely with the countries of the South.

A New Internationalism of Workers and Peoples

Historical capitalism is anything but sustainable. It is only a brief

parenthesis in history. Challenging it fundamentallywhich ourcontemporary thinkers cannot imagine is possible or even desirableis the essential condition for the emancipation of the dominated

workers and peoples (those of the periphery, eighty percent of humanity).And the two dimensions of the challenge are indissoluble. It is notpossible to put an end to capitalism unless and to the extent that, thesetwo dimensions of the same challenge are taken up together. It is notcertain that this will happen, in which case capitalism will beovertaken by the destruction of civilization (beyond the discontents

of civilization, to use Freuds phrase) and perhaps of all life on earth.The scenario of a possible remake of the twentieth century thusremains, but it falls far short of the need of humanity to be engaged onthe long transition towards world socialism. The liberal disaster makesit necessary to renew a radical critique of capitalism. The challenge ishow to construct, or reconstruct, the internationalism of workers andpeoples confronted by the cosmopolitism of oligarchic capital. Theconstruction of this internationalism can only be envisaged by the

success of new revolutionary advances (like those initiated in LatinAmerica and Nepal) which open up the prospect of capitalism beingovertaken.

In the countries of the South, the struggle of states and nations fora negotiated globalization without any hegemoniesthe contemporary


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25SAMIR AMIN

form of delinkingsupported by the organization of claims by thepopular classes, can circumscribe and limit the powers of the oligopolies

of the imperialist Triad. The democratic forces in the countries of theNorth must support this struggle. The democratic discourse thatthey propose, which is accepted by most of the left movement (such asit is), the humanitarian interventions and the pathetic practices ofaid, do not genuinely confront this challenge.

In the countries of the North, the oligopolies are already clearlycommon goods whose management cannot be entrusted to privateinterests alone (the crisis having shown the catastrophic results). Anauthentic left must have the courage to envisage nationalization as afirst essential step towards their socialization through the deepening ofdemocratic practice. The current crisis makes it possible to conceive apossible crystallization of social and political forces rallying all the

victims of the exclusive power of the reigning oligarchies.The first wave of struggles for socialism, that of the twentieth

century, showed the limitations of European social democracies, of thecommunisms of the third international and of the popular nationalismsof the Bandung era. It showed the loss of momentum and finally the

collapse of their socialist ambitions. The second wavethat of thetwenty-first centurymust draw from these lessons. In particular, itmust associate the socialization of economic management with thedeepening of democracy in the society.

These strategic aims make it necessary to think about theconstruction of convergences in diversity (to take up the expressionof the World Forum for Alternatives), of forms of organization and ofstruggles by the dominated and exploited classes. And I do not intend

to condemn or dismiss in advance those forms which, in their way, linkup with the traditions of the social democracies, communisms, andpopular nationalisms.

It seems to me necessary to be thinking about a renewal of a creativeMarxism. Marx has never been so useful and necessary to understandand transform the world as he is today, perhaps more than in the past.To be Marxist in this way is to depart from Marx, not to stay with him,or a Lenin or a Mao, as the historical Marxisms of last century haveconceived and practised it. Creative Marxism must unhesitatinglypursue the aim of enriching such critical thinking, par excellence. It mustnot fear integrating all contributions resulting from reflection in allfields, including those contributions that were wrongly considered asforeign by the dogmatists of past historical Marxism.


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The Impotence of Vulgar Economics

In moments of crisis like the present, the impotence of vulgar

economics is all too evident. The newspaper Le Monde thus posed amischievous question: How is it that the pundits of Harvard had notforeseen the crisis . . . ? Are they just imbeciles then? Certainly not. Buttheir intelligence is completely focused on the only paths acceptable to

vulgar economics and to the false theory of an imaginary capitalism ofthe generalized markets. Just as the brilliant minds of another epochbelieved that the debate on the sex of angels could contribute to abetter understanding of the world.

Vulgar economics, focusing on analyzing the markets operating onthe base of imperfect information, is thus forced to replace ananalysis of the capitalist reality by an endless game (for which mathematicsbecomes indispensable) of hypotheses concerning anticipations.These hypotheses make it possible to foresee all and nothing, as thesubtle and realistic intelligence of Keynes had realized so well.

What are these anticipations? They are but a series of tricks. Theanticipations of those who sell their labor? These unfortunate workersknow that they have hardly any choice. They also know that theycannot improve the conditions of selling their work force without anyorganization and collective class struggle. The anticipations of consumers

who choose (their supermarket?) and choose any financialinvestments they may be able to make? These unfortunates are forcedto take the advice of their bankers, the real deciders. The anticipationsof the entrepreneurs who decide whether or not to invest? Historyshows, as Marx and Keynes had understood, that cycles of overinvestmentlead to the depreciation of capital. The anticipations of the owners of

capital who choose between a risky investment and a preference forliquidity? Repeatedly, there have been financial bubbles, the reasonsand mechanisms of which have been perfectly analyzed, once again byMarx, together with his discovery of the supreme alienation of vulgareconomists (money makes more money, without passing throughproduction) will always remain outside the thinking of our conventionaleconomists. The anticipations of the speculators on the stock exchange?

We know that the best position is that taken by the sheep who follow

the general movement and that this necessarily accentuates thefluctuations.

The shipwreck in the ocean of anticipations is the inevitableproduction of reducing society to a collection of individuals and to adeliberate ignorance of the major realities by which real capitalism is


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27SAMIR AMIN

defined (classes, private property, the State, nations, etc.) This is onlyan ideological formulation in the negative sense of the term that is

extremely functional in giving legitimacy to the real practices ofdominant capital. The vulgar economists who claim that their work isscientific are not even conscious of what they are doing. They cannotunderstand that to carry out scientific work, to approach anunderstanding of the objective reality, there has to be a radical critiqueat the base of their reasoning.

The conventional economists are not critical thinkers. They are, atbest, technocrats. I like to use the word executive for them; theyare executive agents, once at the orders of capital, now at the orders ofthe oligopolies.This is why the critiques that they may make of thesystem are always marginal and their proposals for reform extremelyunrealistic. And when, for some moral reason or another the realityupsets them (too much povertyin fact, too much inequality), thedrift becomes inevitable and pious wishes and sermons have to serve aspolitics.

The bestseller of a Nobel Prize-winner for Economics (strictlyreserved for vulgar economists) is therefore at best a mediocre work.

That of Joseph Stiglitz, which bears the pompous title Another World(2006), is a good example. In 2002, Stiglitz discovered that the

Washington Consensus was not good; he discovered the reality of thebehaviour of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the WorldTrade Organization (WTO), etc. More than half of the 550 pages of thisoverblown work are dedicated to revelations which others haveknown about for thirty or forty years! Stiglitz believes he is the first oneto say them, never having read the work of critical thinkers (and he

probably never will). And it is not even arrogance, but quite simplyignorance. An amusing example: Stiglitz discovered that in 1990there was an agreement on prices by some oligopolies. Thus, heproposed to re-establish competition and to have an anti-trust lawand recourse to tribunals, US-style.

In his book, Stiglitz disregards financialization, about which hesays hardly anything and which he believes to be inoffensive, evenuseful. Stiglitz obviously ignores completely the remarkable work ofthe late-lamented Giovanni Arrighi (1994) concerning financializationbeing the last stage of hegemonies in decline. Evidently, Stiglitz wassurprised by the financial collapse of 2008, about which there was noteven one line indicating the seriousness of the threat. And yet others(including myself) at about the same time, had analyzed the globalized


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liberal system as being by nature unstable, condemned to collapsethrough financial crisis. Stiglitz evidently ignored all that. The picture

he gives of himself revealing to the world the defects of the systemis laughable.

It is therefore not surprising that the Stiglitz report does notbreak out of the reactionary, conventional orthodoxy. It was the issueof the commission designated by then president of the sixty-thirdsession of the United Nations General Assembly, Father MiguelDEscoto. Unfortunately it was to be headed by Stiglitz, who probablyimposed his superficial and limited perception of the problems in thefinal version of the document.3 The failure that resultedthe factthat the countries of the South decided not to be represented at the

June General Assembly at the level requiredwas in fact, for me, a goodsign. It implies that the countries of the South had understood thatthis reportunder the pretext of being a global consensus andrealisticwas in line with the strategy of the North to respond to thecrisis and that its proposals were of the kind that would be acceptableto the oligopolies.

GLOBALIZATION MILITARIZATION, AID, POSTMODERNISM

To maintain their monopoly rent, the oligopolies cannot contentthemselves with deducting their levies on their national economiesonly. Their globalized dimension enables them to deduct still morefrom the economies of the dominated, emerging, and marginalizedperipheries. The pillage of the resources of the whole planet and thesuper-exploitation of workers supplies the substance of imperialist

rent. In turn, this constitutes the conditions for the social consensusthat then becomes possible in the opulent societies of the North.

The discourses on democracy and ecology serve as masks to hidethe real objectives. Vulgar economics is the keystone of the capitalistideology, as should have been understood since the appearance of thecritique of political economy (the subtitle of Marxs Capital).Vulgareconomics, because it concerns a nonreality (generalized markets),does not deserve to be described as scientific as it claims to be. Its realsocial function is like that of sorcery in ancient times. Like the latter,it resorts to a language that is deliberately unintelligible to citizens,aiming to eliminate their power of decision by bombarding them withtruths that are claimed to be objective. In contrast, the language ofauthentic social thought always remains clear, like the writings of Marx,even the most difficult; these writings educate people.


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29SAMIR AMIN

Defeating the Military Control of the Planet by the Imperialists

The most important challenge that the world faces is the militarization

of globalization. In fact, the military control of the planet by theUnited States and its subalterns (NATO and Japan) has become theonly way, at last resort, that makes it possible to levy the imperialist rent

without which the system cannot survive. The Empire of Chaos, as Ihave been describing it since 1991, and the permanent war against thepeoples of the South are one and the same thing. This is why one ofthe first strategic objectives of the progressive and democratic forces inthe North and in the South must be to defeat the armed forces of the

Triad, entailing the abandonment of the US bases spread over all thecontinents and the dismantlement of NATO (Amin 1991; 2000).

This is probably the objective of the Shanghai Group, which hasbegun to renew the spirit of non-alignment, in the sense of non-alignment on imperialist globalization and the political and militaryproject of the Triad.

I believe there is a parallel here with the history of Bandung. Evenbefore the conference of this name (1955) and non-alignment(1960), radical groups of thinkers were mobilized to propose possibleand effective counter-strategies for the peoples of Asian and Africancountries to force the rolling back of the imperialism of that epoch. Ihad the honor and pleasure of participating in one of these groups forthe Middle East as from 1950. There is need for similar initiativestoday.

Aid: A Complementary Instrument to Control Vulnerable

Countries

International aid, presented as being indispensable for the survival ofthe least developed countries (UN terminology for many Africancountries and a few other ones) plays its role here. This is because itsreal objective, aimed at the most vulnerable countries of the periphery,is to create an extra obstacle to their participation in an alternativefront of the South (Amin 2009a).

Concepts about aid have been confined within a straitjacket. Itsstructures were defined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness

(2005), which was drawn up by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These structures were thenimposed on OECDs beneficiaries. The general conditionalityalignment to the principles of liberal globalizationis omnipresent.


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Sometimes it is explicit: promoting liberalization, opening the markets,becoming attractive to private foreign investment. Sometimes it is

indirect: respecting the rules of the WTO. A country that refuses tosubscribe to this strategywhich has been unilaterally defined by theNorthloses its right to be eligible for aid. So that the Declaration ofParis is a step backand not an advancein comparison with thepractices of the development decadesthe 1960s and 1970swhenthe principle of free choice by the countries of the South to follow theirown system and economic and social policies was recognized.

In these conditions, aid policies and the apparent, immediateobjectives cannot be separated from imperialisms geopolitical strategies.This is because the different regions in the world do not have the samefunctions in the globalized liberal system; it is not enough to mentiontheir common denominator (liberalization of trade, opening to financialmarkets, and privatizations).

Sub-Saharan Africa is very well integrated into this global system,and in no way marginalized as it is claimed without thinking,unfortunately all too often. Its foreign trade represents 45 percent ofits gross national product, as against 30 percent for Asia and Latin

America, and 15 percent for each of the regions constituting the Triad.Africa is thus quantitatively more and not less integrated, but in adifferent way (Amin 2003).

The geo-economy of the region depends on two productionsystems that determine its structures and define its place in the globalsystem: 1) the export of tropical agricultural productscoffee, cocoa,cotton, peanuts, fruits, oil palm, etc.; and 2) hydrocarbons andmineralscopper, gold, rare metals, diamonds, etc. The former are the

means of survival (apart from food for the autoconsumption of thepeasants), which finance the transplanting of the State onto the localeconomy and, through public expenditure, the reproduction of themiddle classes. This kind of production is of more interest to thelocal governing classes than to the dominant economies, who arehowever extremely interested in the products of the natural resourcesof the continent. Today it is hydrocarbons and rare minerals. Tomorrowit will be the reserves for developing agrofuels, the sun (when long-distance transport of solar electricity makes it feasible, within a fewdecades), and water (when its direct or indirect export makes itpossible).

The race for rural areas to be converted to the expansion ofagrofuels is under way in Latin America. In this field, Africa has


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31SAMIR AMIN

tremendous possibilities. Madagascar has started the movement andalready conceded large areas in the west of the country for the

cultivation of agrofuel crops. The implementation of the CongoleseRural Code in 2008, inspired by Belgian aid and Food and AgricultureOrganization, will no doubt enable agribusiness to take over agriculturalland on a massive scale in order to exploit them, just as the MiningCode has already enabled the pillage of the mineral resources of thisformer colony. The useless peasants will pay for this and theincreasing destitution that awaits them will perhaps concern futurehumanitarian assistance and aid programs to reduce poverty. In the1970s, I learned about an old colonial dream for the Sahel, which wasto expel the population of useless Sahelians in favour of extensive,Texas-style ranches raising livestock for exportation.

The new phase of history that has opened is marked by thesharpening of conflicts for access to the natural resources of the planet.The Triad intends to reserve for itself the exclusive access to thisuseful Africa (with its natural resource reserves) and to prevent suchaccess by the emerging countries whose needs in this respect arealready great and likely to increase. Guaranteeing exclusive access means

political control and reducing African countries to the status of clientstates.

It is not therefore wrong to consider that the aim of aid is tocorrupt the governing classes. Apart from the financial appropriations(which, alas, are well known and for which we are led to believe thatthe donors are in no way responsible), aid has become indispensableas it is an important source of financing budgets and fulfils a politicalfunction. Thus, it is necessary that aid is conceived as being permanent

and not prepare for its elimination through a serious developmenteffort. Thus, it is important that it is not reserved exclusively and

wholly for the classes in power or for the government. It must alsobe attributed to oppositions that are capable of succeeding them.The so-called civil society and certain nongovernmental organizations(NGOs) have a role to play here. The aid in question, if it is to be reallyeffective politically, must also help in maintaining the entry of thepeasants into this global system, this entry bringing another source ofrevenue for the State. The aid must also be concerned with progress inmodernizing export crops.

Rightwing criticism of aid is based on the notion that it is for thecountries concerned to take action to liberate themselves from thisdependence by further opening themselves to foreign capital. This was


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the substance of Sarkozys speech at Dakar and Obamas at Accra. Thisoratorical appeal avoids the real question. For aid, an integral part of

the imperialist strategy, is a fact for marginalizing the peoples of Africawho are considered useless and troublesome.

The critique of the do-gooder Left, which is that of many NGOs,accepts that the donors will honor their pledges. It limits itself topointless talk about absorption capacity, performance, goodgovernance, promoted by civil society. It calls for more andbetter aid. Radical critique, on the contrary, supports autonomousdevelopment. One can imagine that aid in this context would derivefrom peoples international solidarity, confronting (and against) thecosmopolitanism of capitalism.

Poverty, Civil Society, Good Governance: The Feeble Rhetoric of

the Dominant Discourse

The claim is that its objective is to reduce, if not to eradicate povertyby supporting civil society: to substitute good governance forbad.

The very term poverty stems from a vocabulary as old as the hillsthat of charity (religious or other origin). It predates the languagecreated by modern social thought, which tries to be scientificthat is,it tries to discover the mechanisms that give rise to a visible andobserved phenomenon.

The overpowering mass of literature about poverty focuses almostexclusively on locating the problem and quantifying it. It does notpose questions such as: what are the mechanisms that create thepoverty under discussion? Have they some connection with the

fundamental rules (like those of competition) that govern our systems?In particular, as far as the countries of the South receiving aid, are theyconnected to the development strategies and policies conceived forthem?

Has the concept of civil society, worthy of inclusion in a seriousdebate that purports to be scientific? As it is proposed, civil societyis associated with an ideology of consensus. It is a twofold consensus:1) that there is no alternative to the market economy (itself an

indiscriminate expression that serves to replace an analysis of actuallyexisting capitalism); and 2) that there is no alternative to representativedemocracy based on multiparty elections (conceived as the democracy)that serves as a substitute for the conception of a democratization ofsociety, which is a process without end.


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33SAMIR AMIN

On the contrary, the history of struggles has seen the emergence ofpolitical cultures of conflict, based on the recognition of the conflict

of social and national interests, which gives quite another meaning tothe terms of left and right. It attributes to creative democracy theright and the power to imagine alternatives and not exclusively analternative in the exercise of power (changing the names for doing thesame thing).

Governance was invented as a substitute for power. Theopposition between these two qualifying adjectivesgood or badgovernancecalls to mind Manicheanism and moralism, substitutesfor an analysis of reality as scientific as possible. Once again, this fashioncomes to us from the other side of the Atlantic where the sermon hasoften dominated political discourse. Good governance requires thedecider to be just, objective (choosing the best solution),neutral (accepting a balanced presentation of the arguments), andabove all else, honest (including, of course, the blander, financialmeaning of the word). On reading the literature produced by the

World Bank on the subject, one finds oneself, judging from thegrievances presentedusually by men of religion or of law (and few

women)back in the East of ancient times, during the time of the justdespot (not even the enlightened kind).

The underlying ideology is clearly being used to simply eliminatethe real question: what social interests does the governing power,

whatever it is, represent and defend? How can the change of powerprogress so that it gradually becomes the instrument of the majorities,in particular of the victims of the system, such as it is? The multi-partyelectoral recipe has shown its limits in this respect.

The "Postmodernist Discourse

Postmodernism ends the discourse, called by some the new spirit ofcapitalism, but it would be better to call it the ideology of the latecapitalism/imperialism of the oligopolies. A recent book by NkoloFoe (2008) gives a powerful description of how postmodernismfunctions very well to serve the real interests of the dominating powers(see also Rancire 2008 and Amin 2008).

Modernism originated in the discourse of the Enlightenment inthe eighteenth century in Europe, together with the triumph of thehistorical form of European capitalism and the imperialism that goes

with it, which subsequently conquered the world. It suffers fromcontradictions and limitations. It formulated an ambition to be


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universal, defined by the affirmation of the rights of man (but notnecessarily of woman!), which are in fact the rights of bourgeois

individualism. Real capitalism, with which this form of modernity isassociated, is moreover an imperialism that denies the rights of the non-European peoples who have been conquered and subordinated to thelevying of capitalist rent.

The new Reason considered itself emancipatory; and so it was, tothe extent that it freed society from the alienations and oppressions ofthe anciens regimes. It was thus a guarantee of progress, but a form ofprogress that was limited and contradictory, as it ensured that,ultimately, capital would manage society. Criticism of this bourgeoisand capitalist/imperialist modernity is certainly necessary. Marxeffectively undertook this radical critique, which always needs to beupdated and studied more deeply.

Postmodernism does not make this radical critique to promotethe emancipation of individuals and of society through socialism.Instead, it proposes a return to premodern, precapitalist alienations.The forms of sociability that it promotes are necessarily in line with atribalist identity for communities (para-religious and para-ethnic), at

the other extreme from what is required to deepen democracy, whichhas become a synonym for the tyranny of the people daring toquestion the wise management of the executives who serve theoligopolies. The critiques advanced by postmodernism of the greatnarratives (the Enlightenment, democracy, progress, socialism, nationalliberation) do not look to the future but return to an imaginary andfalse past, which is extremely idealized. In this way, it facilitates thefragmentation of the majority of the population, making them adjust

and accept the dominating logic of imperialist oligopolies. Thisfragmentation hardly impedes that domination; on the contrary, itmakes the task easier. The individual does not become a conscious,lucid agent of social transformation, but the slave of triumphantmerchandization. The citizen disappears, giving way to the consumer/speculator; no longer a citizen who seeks emancipation, but aninsignificant creature who accepts submission.

RESPONSESTOTHE CURRENT CRISISBYTHE DOMINANT POWERSOFTHE NORTH

The responses by the dominant powers (the oligopolies and theirpolitical servants) to the crisis initiated by the financial collapse of


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2008 can be seen from the national policies of the Triad countries andthe collective decisions of the G7 and the European Union. The report

of the commission presided by Joseph Stiglitz, presented to the UnitedNations General Assembly that met from 24-26 June 2009, completesthe ensemble of the documents. Their objective is, as I have alreadysaid, to restore the system of financialized liberal globalization, whichis considered on the whole to be healthy, as soon as some correctivemeasures have been adopted that will prevent future blunders. Theseare the mistakes that were at the origin of the collapse of 2008. Thisobjective is limited to expressing all the prejudices typical of conventionaleconomics.

First Prejudice

The crisis is a financial crisis, produced by the excesses of financial expansion

(themselves facilitated by too much deregulation).This is just an observationbased on trivial, immediate evidence. Behind the excesses are theessential requirements of the expansion logic of the oligopolies. Theconventional economists do not possess the intellectual equipment

enabling them to understand this. Thus, the financial collapse of 2008,which was the inevitable consequence of the unravelling of the longcrisis that started in the 1970sand not only the financial excesses ofrecent yearshas surprised all the vulgar economists.

The crisis underway is therefore seen as a conjunctural crisis, evenif it is accepted that there are also special, underlying structuralproblems. It is a V-shaped crisis, for which a rapid solution is possible.The growth that should return will be energized by financial expansion,as it had been before the collapse of 2008. The only precautions to be

taken will be those to prevent possible aberrations in this futureexpansion. The globalized system is to recapture growth in the sameopen liberal framework that has marked it for three decades, andavoid protectionist reactions to present-day difficulties, which aretemporary. This is close to the vision of the Central Intelligence

Agency, described in its report The World in 2010 elsewhere (Amin2006), I have recommended people to read this document critically.Its conventional analyses do not envisage upheavals, but only the

greater economic weight of China and other emerging countries. Thiscould be facilitated by a gradual abandonment of the exclusive tie tothe dollar as the international reserve currency. The reform of thesystem should have this as its objective.


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Thus, to leave the crisis behind it is enough, if priority is given, tore-establish the functioning of the financial system, the reforms of

which must be planned so that they are capable, according to theexperts of the G7, of avoiding any relapse. However, these experts arenot able to understand that such reforms will, in one way or another,be bypassed by the activities of the oligopolies as long as they preservetheir private status guaranteeing their management exclusively onbehalf of the private interests concentrated in their power. Themoralizing discourse and of having sermon for political analysis willremain, as always, without any effect.

Second Prejudice

The means to protect the economic and financial system from aberrations and

crises can be identified by in-depth research into the efficacy of the market.

Conventional economists focus almost exclusively on this type ofresearch. The underlying assumption is that the markets are self-regulating (the dogmatic liberal viewpoint) or one can help thembecome so by appropriate regulation. However, it has never been

established that such a fundamental tendency exists or could be madeto exist. But vulgar economists are obliged to believe in this mistakenaxiom.

In real capitalism, the functioning of the system and of the markets,the intervention of social struggles and international conflicts, as wellas the regulations themselves interact to make the system evolve fromone disequilibrium to another (at the very most passing through atemporary phase of equilibrium). Those who want to promote theinterests of workers and peoples should refuse to submit to the

requirements of a so-called equilibrium (or apparent equilibrium)which works against them and impose another equilibrium (ordisequilibrium) which works better for them. This fundamental choiceof method should be that of our alternative project.

Third Prejudice

The restoration, in its essentials, of the globalization system, such as it was, is

desirable because it provides opportunities of development for the peoples of the

South. This prejudice, common to all vulgar economists, who share thelinear simplistic vision, taken to an extreme, of development bystages ( la Rostow) prevents them from understanding the nature ofthe permanent, historical failure of the South (the peripheries) in theirefforts to catch up with the North (the center) by involving themselves


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ever more deeply into globalized capitalism. The idea that globalizedcapitalist accumulation is responsible for the production and

reproduction of their failure is completely alien to them, quiteincomprehensible in fact.4

This is the reason why conventional economists are forced toignore the inherent pauperization in the pursuit of globalizedaccumulation, substituting considerations about a phenomenon feltto be only adjacent to itpoverty. Realities are attributed tomistakes in policy that can be corrected without posing the questionof the logic of the accumulation process. However, the efforts toformulate poverty reduction programs have only had very meagreresults. All the resistance, revolts, and involvement of societies in theSouth to move in other directions thus seem to these economistsirrational, motivated by shallow ideological options (such asextreme nationalism, etc.). In this way, it is possible to dismissalternative resistances and involvement that nevertheless are destinedto come to the forefront of world affairs.

Fourth Prejudice

The

Documents

Battlefields Chosen by Contemporary Imperialism_Samir Amin